No doubt everyone has good intentions of letting other large automakers buy off Ford assets, but I believe an independent group would be better for them in the long run. Capital aside, these car makers are extremely different from what the brands being sold are in design and history. Ford bought them when times were better, and it was a mistake too. Let a car enthusiast with enough capital to freshen and improve the brands take the reigns. Do you really want V-dub making Jaguar?? That’s like GM making a Ferrari! If they get sucked up by a large corporation, then they will either rot under new management, or become altered and lose even more of their unique stature.

dont know where jag would fit in with fiat… they got ferrari for the sports and maserati can be made the sedan and sportivley oriented sedan brand… (ie a small quattroporte or something like that), wheres Volvo with BMW might make some sense..

Landrover may do fine with both, but it could still feel weird seeing a landrover thinking “thats an italian company now”…

Its stupid to sell Volvo. As for the “British” brands, they are going to have to give those away just like Mercedes-Benz had to give away Chrysler.

ford doesnt have toi give the british brands away, neither did DaimlerChrysler have to give Chrysler away… they just DECIDED to do so – and are doing way better without them… the result, ownerwise, may be the same, but arent the reasons a more interesting aspect of it?

Ugh. My heart hurts for Jaguar. I have such high hopes for this brand and cannot think of a suitable partner. Who has platforms that Jaguar can base future models on without competing?

As for Land Rover, they just keep on making the most capable and beautiful junk. And Volvo is solid yet staid in styling but, dull to the performance set.

i thought these companies are making money for ford so why are they selling it

Land Rover is a crap, worse than Ford.

Here’s the correctlink to the FT story:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/281c9ab8-1804-11dc-b736-000b5df10621.html

Sad, but not surprising.

Fiat-Jaguar-Land Rover??? The epitome of reliability!

^ lol. Volvo and Land Rover should go to BMW and Jaguar to the VW group (AUDI, Lambo, Bentley, VW, e.t.c) i too have very high hopes for Jaguar especially the XK

LP640 you’re dumber than a bag of hammers. BMW unloaded Land Rover a couple of years ago to Ford, do you think BMW wants that brand back? Land Rover consistently stays in the very last place in the JD powers initial quality survey. You simply cannot do anything with the British nameplates. That’s why Ford has to put Volvo up as well. Nobody in their right mind wants Jaguar or Land Rover…But if you want Volvo, you’re gonna have to take 2 duds along with it.

Um, LP640, do you remember who Ford BOUGHT Land Rover from?

I don’t think the BMW board is in a hurry to repeat that move.

There’ll also be a shake down over at VW Group. Now that Porsche is “control” they may start selling off marques, too.

BMW or Daimler are the only guys that could fix Jag. Maybe VW/Porsche.

I’ve always been a fan of volvo’s. My folks had two of the sweedish tanks when I was a boy. I think volvo has evolved nicely as a brand over the years while staying true to their roots.

well, that sucks, all of these companys have no where to go because all of the companys that are supposedly involved already have luxury marques to thier nameplate, too me it is an image thing saying, “o, look who i got, its jaguar, and so on”. but who knows.

Mercedes should buy land rover and share platforms/engine and tranmissions to cut cost. At the same time buy the daimler name back from Jaguar.

dang, and I was sure Ford was going to hang on to them.

Shakedown at VW? What do they need to get rid of? Audi? Bentley? Lamborghini? The only money loser at VW is Bugatti and that’s because they want to be extravagant. So what should they sell off meanpants? The VW group has no duds.

Oh yeah, and the VW group is not strapped for cash either. So its not like they even need to have a fire sale.

Hell no.

It’s hard to believe a lot of what’s been reported on this site. One day a claim is made and the next it’s refuted? What’s going on?

I don’t know what to believe on this site anymore. One day one thing is said, and the next it’s refuted by another source. What’s going on?

Madcapp, I tend to agree with you. Porsche and VW seem to be a shining example of what to do right when merging two companies, without actualy merging them.

However, towards that end, the one “dud” in the mix is probably Bugatti. It is extravagant, and if it stays in the 1 million Euro stratosphere, it’ll suffocate on the lack of demand. Mercedes is struggling to sell the half-a-million SLR crafted by proven AMG and McLaren engineering.

The problem is when you bring Bugatti down from orbit into the realm of where real buyers (even if just the affluent ones) purchase, then you’d be slipping into the “regular” supercar market (think Carrera GT), the everyday supercar market (think 911 Turbo), and even if you expand the Bugatti line with a luxosedan, you’d be competing with a waiting Panamera. Why would Porsche want competition?

My vote? Sell off Bugatti. Without VW engineering and engine technology, the stratospheric Bugatti would probably wither and die, but maybe it should. Building a hyperexotic supercar that bleeds money does nothing for shareholders, nor would it further useful technology for the rest of us.

Are you kidding me? Volkswagen until last year was in real trouble. They were losing money on every VW Golf that was sold and are only on path now becuase of Wolfgang Bernard who they thanked by pushing out of the company. Volkswagen are along wasy to being fixed yet?

Plus on top of that they have brand over laps and majority of brand just about breaking even (e.g. Seat, Skoda, Bently, Lambourghini) Audi the only one making good profit.

Personally If I were Ferdinand Piech I would rather be looking at merging with Mercedes, seeing as they can cut alot of cost by sharing cost in every department and bringing everything into one roof. Kill all Mercedes sports cars except the SL and SLR and leave Mercedes to make coupe’s and Saloons. Plus they could share the CLS platform for the Panamera. Hold on to Chrysler and VW shares to pocket change.

_____my fault i forgot ^ Stuart makes sense a Mercedes VW merger would be good. the Buggati ownership is just an an exp[eriment to see if the veyron was possible to build i doubt theyre gonna be producing any future models which will be expected to generate reasonable profit or sales

Stuart, that is car blasphemy. Reducing the M-B CLS and Panamera to glorified GM stablemate cars like the Monte Carlo and Cutlass Supreme.

Yes Sir, sell ‘em all except Volvo. Ford has NOTHING to lose with the sale of Jaguar/Land Rover. Those two brands have brought nothing but tears, headaches and just plain disgust for Ford, so it’s better if they didn’t own them at all.

I can understand why Ford would sell off Aston Martin, since their platforms and the majority of their mechanicals were bespoke.. but the Volvo/Jaguar/LR/Ford platforms and mechanicals are becoming so deeply intertwined that it would make little sense now for Ford to unravel them and lose out on the global cost advantages from their platform sharing. I am hopeful that this is just more misinformation.

The Germans can fix anything; witness Bentley and Lamborghini. However, BMW doesn’t need Land Rover, since their SUV lineup selling like crazy and they want to roll out the X6 now.

Acquiring Jaguar would be TOTALLY redundant. Between Audi, MB, and BMW, where the hell is there room for another set of luxury sedans? Unless BMW feels like creating a new category; the super-luxo saloon old-world classy sedans, to complement the current sporty lineup.

Anyways, this whole rash of selloffs is crazy. MB and BMW alone have enough models to feed the enture planet.

Coming from someone who owns almost 2000 cars, having only Audi, MB, and BMW makes life quite boring…

Though sad, I see this as inevitable as any of the US car makers would rather sell of bits not based on US soil even if the real issue is the home-grown models.

I see this just as short term short signtedness.

Whats next? If Ford USA is still making huge losses after selling volvo, Jag & LR will they next be looking at selling of Ford of Europe models and Ford Australia?

Does Ford have a strong enough product to survive just as Ford? Judging by the anti-ford words by the US posters on here, I find that doubtful

Spud, there’s a huge difference between your own brand name and another seperate brand name which you bought.

Ford is not going to sell off bits of its own company. Even GM’s Opel/Vauxhall brands are more part of GM’s brandname than Volvo/Jaguar/Landrover ever was of Ford.

^lol veda also owns 2 ssanyong rextons which is the ugliest car ever made

When I say that ferdinand Piech should consider a merger with Mercedes I mean Porsche merging with Mercedes and not Volkwagen. Call the company DaimlerPorsche. Build the SL and 911 together sharing engine and other various component. Build the Cayenne and ML/GL together and share platform/component with other model including SLK/Boxster & Panamera/CLS.

Volvo is not and will not be for sale i don’t care what or who says it will. the business of the auto companies are to make money and if a division is a money maker it stays. Jaguar and land rover are in a serious restructuring process at the moment so only time will tell how well that plays out until then i believe that this is only speculation.

deantj, of course I get my employees to do that, though if you’re ever in my position you’d certainly find the time to do that.

LP640, yea the Rexton’s are ugly but if you’ve owned everything else already, what else is there to buy? Lambos get boring after a while…

Too bad Ford has to sell because it is cash strap. Land Rover can be fixed though, and market it more like the Hummer and Jeep. Doesn’t the British army use Range Rover? Jaguar should just streamline the product. No more Fordish Jag… XK is fine but should probably move up market for less expensive sportier car beneath it to compete with the 5-series etc., and where the heck are the coupe and convertible with aluminum body??? Also, the x-type needs to go.

Volvo does Ford a lot of good, and really Ford should not sell it. If anything, give the British brands away and Volvo will probably make that money back in a few years. Selling volvo may also hurt Mazda which shares platforms and technology with Volvo.